


shadow of you

by memefair



Series: Canon Divergent: Nanamicentric [9]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Human Nanami Chiaki, Nanami Chiaki Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 08:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16971390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memefair/pseuds/memefair
Summary: Sometimes, Izuru awakens and remembers, however brief it might be.





	shadow of you

**Author's Note:**

> BIG TRIGGER WARNING FOR SURGERY AT THE BEGINNING AND A LITTLE IN THE MIDDLE.
> 
> it's only a brief part of the fic, but if that's potentially triggering for you then i want you to know!
> 
> anyway thanks for reading more of the hot garbage spilling from my fingertips.

The scent of disinfectant.

The pure white room.

The leer of the doctor, the lower half of his face obscured by a surgical mask.

Scalpels. Incisions. Mutterings he couldn’t decipher. He was already so sleepy. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, couldn’t focus on his surroundings. This was what he wanted, right? He couldn’t feel any of it. They’d been testing him every day, drugging him, finding his limits.

The whine of a drill as it bored into his skull.

_Stop._

Stop, I’m awake.

_STOP!_

screaming through clenched teeth unable to move unable to feel anything trying to writhe from pain that should be there but wasn’t everything numb i take it back i want to go back is this what i wanted why am i here what have i

Silence.

He sat up, his heart pounding in his chest, sweat dripping from his forehead where the scar still lay prominent. Confusion and horror swirled inside him. He felt nauseous-- strange. Had he ever felt this way before? He couldn’t recall. His mind, always in overload, couldn’t process this information, as if it were toxic to his very being.

His hands were shaking. He stared at them as if they were foreign objects. _Who am I? What am I doing here?_ Faint echoes of the dream lingered, like someone screaming at him from an insurmountable distance.

Moving to get out of bed, he was stopped by a small, scarred hand grabbing his arm.

“Izuru,” Chiaki mumbled, still half asleep. “What…?”

Izuru slammed back into his body.

The room around them was small and dark, sparsely decorated… quaint. It was familiar. It was his room. No… Their room? That’s right. He was living here now, with her, as he had been for the past couple of months. Normally it would have taken him all of one millisecond to pull this information up as he awoke, but the dream had unsettled him, exposing him. If he had the disposition for it, he might have been embarrassed.

As it was, he simply slid his arm away from Chiaki’s hand and stood up. “Go back to sleep.” There was no tremor in his voice. “I’m just getting water.”

With a wordless grumble, Chiaki settled back into bed, pulling the covers up. He stopped to observe her briefly, lingering on her form, the way her hair fell in her face. A sense of longing that he couldn’t name struck him.

How long had he wanted something like this, with her? _No._ That was illogical. Any desire involving her had developed fairly recent, though it might seem otherwise thanks to the short scope of his own existence.

This existence… how painfully mundane, he mused as he headed for the kitchenette. Waking up every day, making lunch for Chiaki, cleaning up after her, cooking dinner, playing games, discussing inane things like what she’d done at work or the weather, perhaps debating their clashing ideologies-- it was all so dreadfully boring that he had to wonder why he was still here.

He had his laptop stored away safely. She couldn’t crack into it if she wanted to. There lay the means to an end, the answer he’d been seeking since Enoshima had failed him.

There lay the end of their relationship as well, he surmised. It was unlikely she would forgive him. Chiaki was irrational like that. She couldn’t understand the greater meaning of his project, only that it would put her former classmates, and the world, in grave danger.

Thinking about it now, a sense of dread uncharacteristic of Izuru settled over him like a heavy fog.

_You have no idea how good you have it, do you? You’re going to throw it all away. You’re going to hurt her again._

Self doubt… What an obnoxious thing. With time, he expected the clarity of that dream to fade into nothingness. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but it was still exceedingly rare. Except… this was the second time he’d had one in the past month. Why? Normally he didn't dream at all, as far as he was aware.

His head throbbed, pulsating along the line drawn into his scalp. He could almost feel the implements there again, ghosts of surgeons at his head, and he had a sudden urge to claw at his skin as if it were not his own. He swallowed that sensation, and the bile that rose in his throat.

_Side effects are to be expected,_ one of the researchers had told him shortly after he had awoken for the first time as himself. _We’ll buff them out as we go._

Without turning on the lights, Izuru easily found the refrigerator. The power in the building was reliant on a generator, and residents were advised to be as mindful of their power consumption as possible. That wasn’t why he avoided the lights, of course-- he just didn’t need them. Such things were unnecessary, with his flawless vision.

He opened the door, reached in, and extracted a bottle of water.

Unnecessary things… That was what all of this was, in the end. Nothing mattered. This tiny apartment, this shell he was currently residing in, Chiaki, none of it meant anything in the grand scheme of things. Completely, utterly meaningless.

He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a swig. His headache was starting to dull down.

Chiaki often insisted that life wasn’t meaningless. She’d tell him that life was what each individual person made of it, each injecting their own chosen meaning into their own existence. If something was pointless, it was because he _made_ it pointless.

He didn’t put much stock in those kinds of thoughts. They were informed by sentimentality and emotion, things he’d long since cast off.

_Then why are you still here?_

Why indeed… Why waste his power and talent on living a domestic life?

Was he _content?_

When he was finished, he put the bottle back in the fridge. They reused everything as much as possible, since no recycling plants were active anymore and resources were scarce. Even fresh water could be difficult to locate, thanks to the pollution that fell down upon the earth every time it rained. Of course, he didn’t really know any other way of living.

Not normally given to such introspection, Izuru heaved a sigh. Every time he had one of these dreams, it was like a virus had wormed its way into his system, someone else temporarily inhabiting his body, their thoughts leaking into his.

He had an idea of who it might be. Some mediocre being who should have been erased a long time ago. Somebody he refused to acknowledge as part of his existence… somebody _she_ still longed to see again, a thought which itched and itched, a feeling he was unable to give a name to that Chiaki had explained simply as “jealousy”, though she’d tacked her characteristic “...probably” to the end.

_I have no reason to be jealous of that fool,_ he’d told her then. _The most worthwhile thing he ever did was sign himself over to the project._

She hadn’t spoken to him for the rest of the day after that, pointedly ignoring him as she focused her gaze on the screen in front of her.

Izuru had originally been created with the intention to have no emotional attachment to anything. Nothing would hold him back from using his talents to his fullest potential, then. He had the power to change the world, if he so wished it.

...what a tedious task.

He didn’t owe the world anything.

Chiaki had fallen back asleep in the time that he was gone. He’d known her long enough to recognize her patterns with ease-- she took a long time getting to sleep, but once she was there, it was difficult to rouse her again, unless her subconscious startled her awake.

She looked peaceful, her cream-colored hair moving slightly with every soft exhale. The blanket had fallen away, exposing a bare shoulder, the curve of her neck. He knew he’d remember this moment with perfect clarity, as he did every other moment in his life; why did he hesitate? It seemed he still wasn’t quite himself, even though he could no longer remember what it was he’d even been dreaming about.

That was how he knew it wasn’t _his_ memory, because he could forget. He refused to lay claim to something so faulty.

He slipped back into bed beside her, smooth enough that Chiaki shouldn’t have even noticed his presence. Even so, once he settled in, she turned over on her side, throwing an arm over his waist. He didn’t respond. It became clear that his earlier assumption wasn’t off the mark, as she fell back to snoring quietly.

For a single, fleeting moment, he felt like he should apologize to her. And then it was gone, as quick as it came, and as he closed his eyes again he felt that shadow in his mind dissipate along with his consciousness.


End file.
